In a previous article I have explained how the vCO dynamic Types allow to simplify the development of vCO plug-ins and how these are leveraged by VMware vCloud Automation Center XaaS. It is now time to experiment with creating a plugin with leveraging the Dynamic Types plug-in generator package.

Warning : You can do it without Java development experience and without having to write a single line of scripting !

You may have noticed that the vCO 5.5.1 release notes are listing a new feature called "Dynamic Types"

"Workflow developers are now able to explore the new Dynamic Types which currently is being shipped with Beta quality. They can easily extend vCenter Orchestrator plug-ins by adding their custom types accessible from the scripting API. New types become available in the inventory right after creation and they could be directly leveraged from the vCAC ASD context as part of the cloud provisioning process and XaaS definition."

This article explores how the Dynamic Types can be leveraged to create your own mini vCO plug-ins without having any Java development skills.

If you're reading this article, it may be because you have installed vCloud Automation Center (vCAC) and are interested in using an account other than This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. to login to the embedded vCenter Orchestrator (vCO) server. By default, the vCO Server uses a "vcoadmins" group in the "vsphere.local" domain provided by the SSO server that vCAC was configured to use. This short tutorial will step you through a pretty basic configuration where I have just deployed a vCAC 6.x appliance and wish to use my domain account for vCO login.NOTE: Article updated Jan 26, 2015

This week VMware released vCenter Orchestrator 5.5.1. While this is not a major new release it contains a lot of new features focusing on making vCO content development easier. Also important is a list of deprecated features.

A frequent question around vCenter Orchestrator is: Can I read/write to shared folders? The answer is always yes, but the documentation may be difficult to find - especially when you are referring to a Windows share - aka CIFS in samba and *nix mounting terminology. Read on to learn EXACTLY what you need to do to allow your vCO server to read/write to a Windows Share!

vCloud Hybrid Service (vCHS) is backed by vCloud Director. What does this mean? Well, it means that once you have defined 1 or more Virtual Data Centers, and VMware releases an updated vCD plug-in, you will have access to a vCloud Director Organization! Why is that good and what is the point of this post? Well, in short, this means you can use vCenter Orchestrator (vCO) to do some automation within your vCHS Virtual Data Centers! Read on to learn exactly HOW you would go about doing this. This tutorial will step you through the process of configuring vCenter Orchestrator to access resources hosted on VMware's vCloud Hybrid Service.

NUC Lab Kit

Below are my thoughts for a vSAN nuc lab. Since I already have cables, not including them here. I ordered (and received by Nov 30, 2016)3 x nuc, 3 x 32GB Crucial mem, 3 x Toshiba NVMe drive, 3 x Startech USB to GB NIC, and 3 x Crucial 1TB SSD. I've also been very happy with my Cisco SG300-10 so I bought one more since my existing one only has one port available. Each of the items listed here are linked below - all were purchased using the provided links below.single NIC (See this post for details on using the USB -> GB NIC item listed below

I stayed with the i5 for the power consumption and form factor vs. the i7 Skull Canyon ;)